Establishing a new Work-Life-Balance

 

Looking across a section of the lake towards the Roman Cathedral at dusk

The change of job with the arrangement of two weeks there, two weeks with my family has led to a new way of counting time. Not sure how long that will last, but so far I have been going by “1^st phase in Ratzeburg”, “1^st phase home after Ratzeburg”, “2nd phase…” etc. Right now I am in the middle of “3^rd phase home after”, and that means that already half of my probationary period is over. I have arrived at a point where I have the feeling that I have pretty much acquired the necessary knowledge to work the kind of machine I did not know already, I remember mostly where things are and I am no longer itching to follow processes of dealing with patients as they were done at the former place, but am getting used to doing it the way as it is done there. I have begun to understand some of the more intricate dynamics within the team relationships and think I know whom to be aware of. I tell myself that I go there to work, not to make close friends, getting along with them in the working environment is the important thing. The head nurse is straightforward, no fiddling, and so far we have communicated very well, which is rather different from what I was used to before.

One of the reasons why I chose Ratzeburg is the fact that it is situated in lake country. And I wanted to go far a daily swim. Depending on the work schedule I go before work, or on a long and extended walk after work. In January I started by wading in the water up to my knees and thought I would continue to do so until sometime in the spring. But in February, after my return and a first wade I decided to not wait any longer and have been immersing completely since. It is cold, indeed, and the first three times were very very difficult. After that, it has become easier and easier and as the water has warmed up a little – from 2 degrees centigrade to just above 7 last time I was up there – my swimming time has increased a bit, too. 

Bike trip to Schaalsee

 I love the lake, I listen to the birds and use my app to identify bird songs and enjoy the walks. 

 

I have received my rental agreement for the apartment I will be moving into and hope that the windows will really get exchanged soon enough that the moving-in date stated in the contract is actually going to materialize.

Thus I can say that the work side of life is on a very good road. I feel much happier in that arrangement than I have felt in the previous work situation, and I am much happier in that town than I have been in many years where we have been living for the past 19 years.

So far, however, I have not been able to seriously commit to a daily art practice when I am up there, although I meant to. I am making something every day, but often (only) knitting or spinning, because the room in the nurse’s dormitory that I am staying at right now does not really have enough space for creative activities, nor did I bring a whole lot of materials.

But I try to get serious about it when I am home.

I did finish, enter and ship one quilt for the competition of former Prague Patchwork Meeting, now Brno Patchwork Meeting, as I mentioned in the last post. I am going there next month (during “phase 4 after”) with an exhibition of 20 Perspectives and wanted to be a part of the competition “Zero Waste” as well. I also finished my quilt for the Ocean Contest of European Patchwork Meeting in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines, which I also wanted to enter in Wide Horizons and will finish the digital entry tonight.

And I need to get going about my contribution to EQA’s challenge “Imagine a Bird” (in Germany we called it “alle Vögel sind schon da” in quotation of a well-known German song). My first idea of a derivation from a photo I took on one of my walks along the lake 

 

has been substituted for already by another and I will see how it works out.

And then there is a SAQA Benefit Auction piece that needs to be made...

Meeting Deadlines, making the most of it

 Just a couple of days ago I entered a quilt I recently finished for the Brno Patchwork Meeting (formerly Prague Patchwork Meeting). Because the 20 Perspectives Group will be exhibiting there I figured it would make a lot of sense to enter a quilt in one of their challenges. The topic 'Zero Waste' spoke to me as it seemed a good way to finally work out an idea I had been having for a while. This idea included using red plastic tops from syringes I had been collecting at work, caused by a misunderstaning on my part.

Because these little parts had a little hole at the top I thought this would extend all the way through, and I had collected quite a few of these before I realized my mistake. I mean, it doesn't really make a lot of sense that syringe stoppers would have a hole all the way through, and I don't quite understand why I harbored the idea, except maybe that my 'green' or 'ecological' heart was suffering badly when seeing all the plastic, wrapping, gadgets and instruments that go to waste in a dialysis practice every single day. And especially these red tops... 

First stitches for this quilt began during the last summer already, and it was a long and laborious process. Somewhere along the line I also had the idea of including some more of the still relatively numerous embroideries by Afghan women in my stash (Guldusi Embroidery), and originally I had wanted to make it a rather turquoise/red quilt, for which I begged for turquoise scraps from my good quilting friend Bea @capricornquilts because I realized my abundance of turquiose scraps was low.

 

In the end the quilt turned out a lot less turquoise and red than I had envisioned. And the red tops needed a special kind of treatment to actually end up on the quilt top because, as I mentioned, the hole did not extend all the way and I could not stitch them onto the top.  But I finished on the time before the deadline (which is still a week away! so early!), and I stayed within the size restrictions relatively easily because I was so smart to outline the size cirumference on my design wall with string and pins and thus managed to keep within the boundaries. And I had it professionally photographed - and then happened to delete the file accidentally and had to ask for it being resent. By that time I had gone north again, did not have a printer available, could not print out the entry form for the challenge nor download a workable version of the pdf-reader that would let me fill in the form digitally. I had to ask at work whether I could print out the file from my private mail account... fill it in by hand, take a photo of it, turn it into a pdf and send it ... it was a thorny way indeed before I managed to get in that entry.

As I have also decided to try and enter it for SAQA's Europe/Middle East call for entry "Wide Horizons" (deadline end of this month) I am not showing any other pictures right now. The jury for Wide Horizons should have decided before the meeting in Brno, so I figure a double entry is not outside the  rules, which don't say 'must not have been shown anywhere before' anyway.

I also hope to have a second entry finished for Wide Horizons, perhaps, which, should it not get accepted, could be entered somewhere else. Give them many chances...

Work, and its pleasures

Last time I wrote about something relating to my work life, in the first half of 2022 (about knitting pink socks, my absolute non-favorite color, for somebody whose favorite color it was) that post resulted in a conversation with the head nurse, who is a friend in fibers. Subsequently I took the post down, but the conversation had also shown me how many aspects of the work situation there were not contributing to me feeling satisfied. Follow-up conversations with my husband led me to start looking for a new job. Which I took in July 2023, and where I was pretty happy in the beginning. I am still content with the overall feeling within the team in total, although by now some dampening of my initial enthusiasm has happened, regarding organizational aspects, the head nurse’s behavior in general – I do think she is a bit of a brat with less than good manners, and I do not hesitate to say that here - and a few other things that must not be spelled out in detail. Some of these aspects caused me to cut back on working hours in April, now only 3 days a week, some others, more dissatisfying ones, have occurred since, and I am again considering options. Of which there are not many, as I don’t want to go back into a hospital, I do like the fact that I don’t have to work night shifts in dialysis, nor Sundays.

With three days a week it has gotten a lot easier to arrange a few days off by placing early requests so that more flexibility arises to move around. Thus I can go and take care of my ageing parents, or plan a trip to a quilt festival, for example. My trip to Birmingham was possible by using up only one of my vacation days, for example, although I was gone for 5 days altogether.

It is amazing, though, how much of one’s life quality is affected by that environment you encounter in your workplace. Perhaps I was naïve because I had not been involved in a lot of work environments with many people – academics in the field I was in tend to work individually, after that I was self-employed as a fabric dyer, and the other part of work environment was the family at home. I didn’t have to deal with the issues I am facing now. Perhaps I am too old to be disrespectfully kept on at by somebody who is only a bit more than half my age and lacking leadership qualities. Perhaps I am getting a bit sensitive in this regard, but most of the other team members are saying the same thing. Perhaps …?

I cut back on the working hours in April because I thought I had found enough of a footing in the field that I could now turn back to having a bit of making time in my real life. As it turns out, it is not easy to start being creative, with these things going on in the background, even on the days when I am ‘not working’. I still make as in knitting, spinning, fiddling small pieces of fabrics around paper templates for a wildly oversized something so I can fondle fabrics, but that is far from the kind of quilting I used to do. I have lost my former ambition for marking my spot in the art quilt world.

But when I decided I wanted to enter a piece in the competition for the Prague Patchwork Meeting that has now moved to Brno, and took note of the entry date, I finally returned to my sewing room and the design wall. 

 

The entry guidelines call for ‘unusual materials’ to be used in the piece, and I have a certain range of options that can be included. I had forgotten how it feels to be piecing fabric together, getting back up to the design wall, putting it where I thought it would go, seeing that it might not have added up in exactly the way I had thought it would. 

 

And how it feels to sit and look at the design wall, waiting for an idea how to move on. That is the real kind of work that is enjoyable. I hope it will tie me over the other stuff, and give me strength to just bide my time there until we find out about my husband's health, and possible changes on his side.

 

Fine Line Piecing Workshop with Kathy Loomis in Germany

Hard to believe that it’s been two weeks already since I returned from the Prague Patchwork Meeting. Kathy and I came back by train 

One of the few Czech works I haven't forgotten -
all the others I can still read and pronounce, but all
my little former knowledge has given up...

– no additional changes required this time – on Monday afternoon, and in the evening we started setting up the room for her workshop. Which began Tuesday morning, and went on for three days.

We had an international lot of attendees – Edith from Switzerland, Hildegard from Germany (the only local one in the group), Mieke from the Netherlands ... a total of eight participants, and a lively group.

Kathy gave us not only the secrets of her fine lines, but several intensive lessons in adequate ironing methods to make things work.

And then she walked us through several different exercises of her fine line technique, which will probably keep us busy trying different things for a little while.

Marking...

... matching...

...cutting...

Straight fine lines (beginning stage - this is by far not enough!)

Diagonal fine lines (too many colors - but not bad for an exercise piece)

Will several different color approaches go together eventually?
We shall see...

Final discussion round with some student's results

The idea to organize this workshop had happened rather haphazardly, as I have written about before. After this particular workshop filled up so quickly I was amazed. My husband, who is a well-connected public person in town came up with the idea of going more regular and/or getting more professional about such an event. He got me in touch with the manager of a local motel where conference rooms are available (including pinning boards, which we had to do without this time in our make shift arrangements). And for a little while I thought I might begin to organize workshops with international teachers on a more regular basis. But after calculating it all through, I decided that it was not a sensible idea to do so, because of the costs that would come with renting the conference rooms. These costs would add so much to the overall charge for the workshop that I believe people would not come any more – so the current state is that we might do it again, but stay in the same room we had this time, which was on the lower end of the buget scale in terms of rent. It can accomodate up to 10 participants, which makes for a wonderful class size. And when Kathy is up to coming back to Europe again for an event like this, she might be teaching another workshop here in Vilsbiburg.